I was rewatching the Fargo series last night and it got me thinking about how a lot of US media these days, especially media aimed at young adults in their 20s and 30s, tries to address existential questions. I think that's to be expected in a society that most everyone agrees is moribund, and in which religious influence over most young people is at a low ebb.

But the answer to the question of purpose that all these shows and movies and games provide usually just amounts to "live for the moment." Live for your hobbies, your little joys, maybe an especially pretty sunset. A show that tries to be a more explicit morality tale like Bojack Horseman may go an extra mile and say, live for your friends and family.

That all sounds nice at first, but think about it for more than five seconds and you realize it's deeply unsatisfying. Mostly because it's just a kinder, gentler hedonism. Different in degree but not in category from saying that the meaning of life is found at the bottom of a bottle.

I think its indicative of our collective realization of how little agency we have in the world today. Of course we should want to live for the little moments. In between oppressive work and school schedules, childrearing responsibilities and the daily barrage of fresh horrors, the little moments are all we have. We can't dream of a future or what we coud collectively create in it. We don't have anything meaningful that we can give ourselves to, anything larger than ourselves that we can be a part of and in turn draw purpose from. We only have the present moment, and the present moment sucks. The only purpose we can hope to have here is the dopamine shot we get from eating our favorite sandwhich on a Tuesdsy afternoon.